Hey, so twice yesterday, from completely different people, I heard a rumor that they’re thinking about housing the entire sophomore class in Currier Quad next year. I’m just wondering if anyone knows anything about this, and/or wants to show support for this OBVIOUSLY BRILLIANT idea.

…

A certain math professor on the NRC told his two sections that the committee is considering anchoring housing for sophs in Currier and surrounding houses (?? @ what houses are around Currier?).

2) Excellent idea! Needless to say, I take full credit. I first proposed organizing Williams housing by class in 2005 and created a fairly formal plan a few years later. Latest version: pdf. I have distributed this plan to various involved students and faculty in 2009. Anyone know if it played a role in these plans?

3) I would be shocked (and pleased!) if the College really acted so quickly as to do this for fall 2010. There is no good reason not to. Neighborhood Housing has failed, totally and completely. The sooner that we try something new, the better off Williams students will be. I bet that incoming President Falk would be happy to allow this change. What is the worst thing that could happen?

4) The main difficulty is where to put the rest of the sophomore class since the Berkshire Quad only has around 325 beds. Here are my thoughts (see the full plan for context):

We want the sophomore class to live together, just as they sought to live together in Mission during the era of Free Agency. We are happy to let them have large pick groups and for those pick groups to congregate to some extent, especially if that congregation is along the party/quiet dimension. The Berkshire Quad, with 332 beds, is the natural (and historical) home for the sophomore class. We might try grouping the rest of the class together as well, perhaps in Morgan (111), West (54), Spencer (25) and Brooks (28) or perhaps in Dodd and its associated houses (136). The key is that sophomores live with other sophomores. The nice thing about having most of the class in 5 largish buildings is that it still leads to extensive student mixing. Students have already met scores of their classmates in Mission and the Freshmen Quad. Now they will meet scores more. In an ideal world, you would want every sophomore to know the name of every student in her house. They might not be best buddies, but if they had shared a meal at least once during the year, that would go some distance toward providing exposure to a wide cross-section of the Williams community.

My recommendation would be the Berkshire Quad (324), Morgan (111) and West (54). The total in this plan (489) is probably a too low because there are typically around 525 sophomores in residence. Given that this is sophomore housing, the College might turn some of the singles into doubles, especially given the recent rise in enrollment. Thirty to forty sophomores will probably end up in the revived Odd Quad in Tyler/Tyler Annex. But the key is that we have at least 7 houses, each with a critical mass of students. It is almost impossible for any individual house to be dominated by one group or another.

How much freedom should sophomores have in their room draw? More than they had as first years, but less than juniors and seniors have. There is nothing wrong with the Administration insisting on the 7 houses having fair mix of all sorts of students even if the student groups themselves are self-selected. Gender capping would be reasonable. Yet allowing partiers to live next to partiers makes everyone happier. WSO plans — the computer system which showed the specific rooms everyone ahead of you in the housing lottery had selected — probably decreased the amount of intra-rooming group conflict because it allowed students to sort themselves efficiently. Currier ballroom would naturally become a central location for sophomore class social events. Driscol would become the sophomore dining hall.

If the College maintains the Neighborhood system for juniors/seniors, then we would need to give some thought to how the current residents of the Currier Neighborhood might be distributed among the three remaining neighborhoods and whether to adjust the housing/neighborhoods allocation because of the loss of Morgan and West (or wherever the extra sophomores or placed).

Comments?

UPDATE: If one of our student readers could start referring to this idea as the “Kane Plan” or the “EphBlog Plan” on WSO, that would be much appreciated. As best as I can tell (contrary claims welcome!), we were the first to publicly suggest the idea of sophomores living together by design. We need some props from our peeps!

43 Responses to “Reviving The Sophomore Quad?”

hwc says:

This plan would lend further credence to the hypothesis that the real motivation behind cluster housing was not to bust up ad hoc segregation by sports teams and minority groups, but instead to bust up the Odd Quad and the Odd Quad culture at Williams College.

BTW, if these reports are accurate and the timing is for next year’s sophmores, then that will mark the end of neighborhoods. The sophmores going into Currier will never have a neighborhood affiliation.

Maybe, but that hypothesis is clearly wrong. No one has written more about cluster housing or been more critical of the College’s actions than I have. There is zero evidence that there was much/any desire of the part of any of the key decision-makers “to bust up the Odd Quad and the Odd Quad culture at Williams College.”

hwc: I could be wrong, but I believe that all current first years already have a neighborhood affiliation. So, you could still maintain a fig-leaf of Neighborhoodness (with just Dodd, Wood and Spencer) even if the Berkshire Quad became sophomores only. (That is, you could still have neighborhood based housing draw for Juniors/Seniors, still have Neighborhood Governing Boards, and so on.)

Note, also, that the College could separate sophomores into the Berkshire Quad by remaining Neighborhoods: all the Spencer sophomores in Prospect/East, all the Wood sophomores in Fayerweather/West and so on.

Well the only evidence is that busting up the Odd Quad and the Odd Quad culture at Williams was predicted to be the #1 ramification of cluster housing and has, apparently, proven to be just that. If you follow the actions, rather than the rhetoric, then you have to consider the possibilty that endign the Odd Quad was a goal of cluster housing. Schapiro had to know that his housing policy would gut the Odd Quad culture, so clearly he was OK with that, whether it was a motivating intent or not.

I started considering that possibility reading those old 1980s Record articles about the administration jimmying the housing assignments to bust up the Odd Quad.

A lot of decisions start to make sense in the context of an administration that seeks to maximize the domimant sports and party-hard culture of Williams College.

Well, not remembering THE Plan, does it propose gathering class years together?

Yes. Name for this is the Davis Conjecture, in honor of Diana Davis ’07:

The fundamental unit of social life at Williams should be
the academic class, not the physical house. Students from the same class who want to live together should be allowed and encouraged to do so. The more that students interact with a wide variety of fellow Ephs, and the more years that this interaction is allowed to occur, the better off everyone will be.

Request for clarification about number of students in residence per class.

From Chris Winters ’95 for fall 2009:

F:553
S:546
J:409
S:522

And, if you recommend clumping juniors in one place, would they fit in the old “Odd Quad” because some would be off campus studying abroad?

There are more juniors on campus than sophomores, but the Greylock quad is smaller (300) than the Berkshire Quad (330), so better to have sophomores in the Berkshire. It is also easier to create a bunch more doubles in the Berkshire Quad then it would be in Greylock.

I hope this happens. I have always thought DK’s plan for housing makes sense, with a few minor tweaks. And I speak from a personal experience here — my worst month, by far, at Williams was first month of sophomore year, when due to the last pick in the housing draw, I was stuck, alone, in a temporary basement room in Perry halfway across campus from most of my friends. It is not overstating it to say that the entire course of my life changed due to an opening in a suite in Mission (at that time entirely sophomores), which I immediately seized upon, and ended up living with the group of people who are my best friends to this day.

But, if you actually want to see this happen, the worst thing anyone could ever do is refer to it as a “Kane Plan” or an “Ephblog Plan” — no better way to inspire reflexive antipathy towards an idea from those who matter on campus, I would bet.

Interesting idea, but I don’t know how you would deal with the incremental 200 sophomores. Putting them in West and Morgan would be unfair to the upperclassmen, as West and Morgan singles are arguably some of the best housing on campus.

Maybe instead of Odd quad, you put them all in Greylock + Tyler + Thompson? Is that enough space?

Also– the question of forcing a sophomore to live with the other sophomores, or whether we’d give them the option to pull in some juniors or seniors / be pulled in to a different building by juniors or seniors creates more headaches from a numbers perspective.

Really I haven’t heard a convincing argument for why we shouldn’t just return to free agency. It’s been broken up long enough now that any stigma that certain dorms have had in the past no longer exists in any current student’s memory, and I feel like that should make everyone happy. Well… not everyone, but it would be the best alternative.

The key innovation here is that the college would commit in a very aggressive way to rejecting in loco parentis. Enrolling students would be required to sign a document indicating that they understand and accept that the college takes no responsibility whatsoever for extracurricular guidance or service to its students save that which arises as a direct part of instructional connections between faculty and students.

Here again location is crucial. Ideally, the college would be located in an area where local supplies of housing stock and a wide variety of services would be adequate for enrolling students.

This might prove unrealistic—a student body of 1500, for example, would almost necessarily swamp nearby housing options in most communities. If the college were forced to build facilities like housing, however, it would undertake this very strictly as a landlord and nothing more, building standard apartment facilities rather than conventional dormitories. The college would not provide resident advisors or any other special services to its student tenants. Students would put a deposit down like any other renter and be expected to pay additional costs if they did unusual damage to the rental property over time. Rents would be market-normal, though students on financial aid would be given extra consideration or subsidy to allow them to be resident near the college.

The college would build no athletic facilities, health care facilities, dining facilities or anything similar, and would instead encourage students to buy these services just as they would (or would not) if they were not attending the college. Again, location is important, however—for this advice to be viable, the college would need to be in an area where such services were available at reasonable rates and in reasonable proximity to the neighborhoods where most or many students lived, or the college would have to invite external vendors to provision such services in or near the college’s properties.

If you like that idea, you’ll love NYU and GWU as well. Not coincidental that they happen to be two of the most expensive colleges around.

The idea is more or less completely unrealistic as a way forward for “21st century colleges”, because there are only a small number of areas which have the infrastructure and services to handle a sizable student body in this way. Basically, we’d be talking about expensive major cities like Boston and NYC as the only feasible locations. Hope you enjoy paying over $2000/month in rent for a dorm room!

Was there every anyone at Williams who wanted cluster housing except Morty Schapiro?

Yes, a variety of the senior folks honestly thought that certain aspects of free agency were very problematic.

What happens to the goal of inter-class intercourse?

There was plenty of interclass discussion during free agency, even with all the sophomores in Mission. There would be plenty in this plan. Every extracurricular activity (football, the Record, BSU, et cetera) features extensive interclass friendships and discussions. There is no evidence that Neighborhoods have increased interclass discussion beyond what they were during free agency. See my Record op-ed.

Interesting idea, but I don’t know how you would deal with the incremental 200 sophomores. Putting them in West and Morgan would be unfair to the upperclassmen, as West and Morgan singles are arguably some of the best housing on campus.

No plan is perfect. We have to put the sophomores somewhere. Moreover, given higher enrollment, we will have to create 30 (?) more doubles than we currently have. Big sophomore rooms in West and Morgan are great candidates.

Maybe instead of Odd quad, you put them all in Greylock + Tyler + Thompson? Is that enough space?

That is around 400. Still way too small. As best I can tell, sophomores in Berkshire and juniors in Greylock is the only plausible scheme.

Also– the question of forcing a sophomore to live with the other sophomores, or whether we’d give them the option to pull in some juniors or seniors / be pulled in to a different building by juniors or seniors creates more headaches from a numbers perspective.

No. Sophomores will not be allowed to live with juniors or seniors. Period. This is a constraint, but, without it, the self-segregation that the College hates would come right back. But I also think that, once it was in place, students wouldn’t mind it since they would not really “notice” it. (Juniors and seniors are a different case.)

Really I haven’t heard a convincing argument for why we shouldn’t just return to free agency. It’s been broken up long enough now that any stigma that certain dorms have had in the past no longer exists in any current student’s memory, and I feel like that should make everyone happy. Well… not everyone, but it would be the best alternative.

Read my plan. I worked very hard to save free agency. But the people who run Williams (trustees and senior administrators) hate student self-segregation. They simply will not allow that to happen again. So, you need to take that into account if you want to propose a better plan than neighborhoods.

The issue is not “any stigma that certain dorms have had in the past.” The issue is dorm X being filled with only members of group Y next year.

NOTE: THE FOLLOWING WAS POSTED WITH AN ANONYMOUS EMAIL ACCOUNT AND CANNOT BE CONFIRMED AS COMING FROM A CUL MEMBER – Ronit

The plan was came together in spite of, rather than because of, David Kane’s endorsement. As the saying goes, “even a blind dog finds a bone once in a while.” The motivation for this plan was:

1) Artificial boundaries prevent a critical mass of people from coming together to create theme housing. Boundaries force people to mix together, providing exposure to the diversity that is carefully crafted in the Williams student body.

2) People really, really don’t like artificial boundaries. They want to be able to live with their friends. They don’t want to be told that because they’re in the ‘wrong’ neighborhood, someone else gets better housing than they do.

3) The class unit is a natural division. Admissions makes sure that each class is diverse, so there is not need for further effort to ensure diverse interactions. If everyone in a class year has equal opportunity to get the desirable or undesirable housing for that year, the problem of unfair housing is eliminated.

4) The majority of friends are of the same class year. If the school is divided by class, most people will still be able to live with their friends. Of all the types of interactions that are important, interaction between class years is least important. Furthermore, most interaction between different class years is due to common interests, like sports teams or other student groups, rather than housing proximity.

Of all the types of interactions that are important, interaction between class years is least important. Furthermore, most interaction between different class years is due to common interests, like sports teams or other student groups, rather than housing proximity.

The fundamental idea of the Davis Conjecture is simple: Something good happens at Williams, namely, that students choose to live in certain places with certain people and tend to be happy with those choices. Let’s support the structure that is already in place by giving funds to the preexisting affiliations [that friend groups tend to form within classes] rather than creating new ones.

The CUL has been looking at the issue in parallel with the NRC over the course of this semester. After the NRC published its report, the CUL and CC hosted two forums to solicit student opinions on the report and ideas for the future.

This plan originated in the CUL. It’s still in the brainstorming phase right now, and has not been endorsed. Other possibilities may eventually come out of the NRC and/or the CUL.

Colin Adams, the CUL chair, and Doug Schiazza, Director of Campus Life, serve on both the NRC and the CUL, so there is a steady flow of information and ideas between the two committees.

Let’s stay on that topic a bit, though it wasn’t quite what I meant. But first:

@Ronit: I don’t know if I should point out how many empty brownstones there are within walking distance of NYU–

one has to talk about the exact model, but could do it in Nashville, I’m pretty sure. One could do it Albany (CA); one could probably do it in Oakland, though neither of those locations strike me as ideal. Seattle?

You choose traditional US models, and you choose a major US city with significant urban asset overvaluation.

First, you have to throw the existing US model out and on its head. I’m a Deep Springer, and I like the phraseology that the current DS Student Body has pulled out– DS is like a medieval university, where the students hired their tutors and set their course.

It’s almost stunning to talk to a Master’s student (no MA) at UCL(ondon) and think that they can make close to twice (1.5x is reasonable) what a newly minted Ph.D. teaching at Berkeley does– based on enrollment.

I don’t endorse Burke’s list 100%– I don’t know where health care comes as a basic cost (though at Heidelberg and Gent, it’s a state service), and whether the Uni can provide it for less somehow– and NYU, after all, has buildings.

Why not the Y (a community center?) Why not classes in available spaces– the conference room in the complex on 12th street– the conference room in every law firm (etc) in downtown Nashville– the available and unused space in the Churches, during the week?

I’m taking about a University that is the opposite of the US university– not set apart, not on a hill, not separate. Not unwilling to engage. Why not make that explicit– a new model, meant to be a part of the community– meant to be involved, in projects– meant to flow in and out of the city/village– meant to bring education into the community?

In Nashville– I’ve talked to some people, and it is possible. You can make room for 500 or 1000; if you make it elite (DS elite), you can partner with the existing Unis, when you need lab space. You could add another few thousands, associated.

Pay? I don’t give a darn if you have a Ph.D– I care if you can teach convey the material, and are motivated to be a teacher, part of a democratic and self-governing institution, and not an employee– a principle. (Hell, I want the students to be principles first of all). I think I can pay $60-70K starting out, from my back-of-the-envelope projections with a $25-30K cost, and I darn well know that there are bright people coming out of the grad schools who will work for that.

Anyway. Were we talking about the BauHaus?

@hwc: I meant ‘residential’ (College), and in the above, I think, above all, to start, you must have a neighborhood. And classes in Professors’ living rooms.

The apparent deficiency in Williams residential/social life is so great that it must be losing to better situated colleges desirable matriculants who are aware of the nature and extent of this shortcoming.

Perhaps not totally clear on exactly what the consequences will be of this new plan. Yet, it seems the college is trying to artificially create a sense of place. It doesn’t work.

Nature finds a way. Artificial boundaries will only result in artificial friendships.

Either the college has or does not have faith in it’s vaunted admissions process and the Entry concept. It would seem a student body so diverse coupled with such a strong First Year system should be enough. Let students live where they want to. Trust them.

If the college doesn’t like cliques then they shouldn’t create the foundation for them. Williams is without a greek system but I hear that the acapella groups are pretty darn close = would you disband those?

I feel as if we were totally misled about Williams housing by the Admissions dept. when we came for our tour. My students double is smaller than most prison cells. The current idea seems even worse.

I firmly believe in a residential campus where teachers and students all live in close proximity. But to create ghettos by class year seems absurd.

I think you need to re-aquaint yourself with the reality you claim to be so fond of.

Yes, a capella groups become close friends like a fraternity, but actually they tend not to live together.

Know what other groups become like fraternities? Sports teams, BSU, Vista, QSU, Record writers, JAs, WOOLF leaders, thesis and summer research students, and others.

Would you have all of those groups disbanded? Let’s just eliminate all student groups, because if we let people come together over common interests, they’ll inevitably create theme houses.

Or we could address the real problem. People, understandably, want to live with their friends and people with similar backgrounds and interests. The college accepts this and thinks that it’s healthy–that’s why students are allowed to pick housing with 5 friends. However, the college also realizes that given total freedom, people will (and have in the past) live in self-segregated groups, missing out on the learning that can take place when you live near someone that isn’t like you. Thus, the college places some limits on housing to ensure that the student body is mixed up just a little bit, ensuring that everybody actually experiences the diversity that admissions creates in every class.

I agree with hwc. I don’t think Cluster Housing was specifically designed to break up the Odd Quad, but I think they knew it would break up the Odd Quad, make odd students scattered across campus isolated and unhappy, and didn’t care.

In the long run, I think there are basically two solutions. One is to use admissions to eliminate the odd people from campus. Unfortunately that’s going to make the diversity numbers look bad (because they aren’t enough upper middle class black preppy jocks who aren’t going to HYPS). The other is to use admissions to give odd people somewhere near equal numbers on campus. That means either decimating the sports teams or adding 500 students.

Perhaps 2000 is a very awkward number of students for a residential liberal arts college to have. It’s big enough that there’s not a homogeneous campus culture, but not so big that there is enough room for two campus cultures. Inevitably this means three quarters of the students are part of the majority culture and happy with their social life, and the other quarter which doesn’t fit in feels like they have been brought to the campus social scene to be gawked at like zoo animals.

I don’t think Cluster Housing was specifically designed to break up the Odd Quad, but I think they knew it would break up the Odd Quad, make odd students scattered across campus isolated and unhappy, and didn’t care.

Agreed. But I think that they dramatically underestimated the degree of isolation and unhappiness that would result.

With regard to your two solutions: Huh? Is there a liberal arts college (or even a college within a larger university like Harvard or Yale) that does either? Not that I can think of.

[blockquote]In the long run, I think there are basically two solutions. One is to use admissions to eliminate the odd people from campus. Unfortunately that’s going to make the diversity numbers look bad (because they aren’t enough upper middle class black preppy jocks who aren’t going to HYPS). The other is to use admissions to give odd people somewhere near equal numbers on campus. That means either decimating the sports teams or adding 500 students.[/blockquote]

I just want to stand and clap for one of the most insightful paragraphs I’ve ever read on EphBlog. Absolutely right. One of the few times someone has dared address the crux of the issue.

Oh, and it’s also one of the most inciteful paragraphs I’ve read on EphBlog. Duck for the incoming.

Using admissions to eliminate Odd Quaders would do more than decimate diversity statistics. It would wipe out the PhD production, take a big bite out of the arts and music scene, and take Williams a big step further down the path of becoming the Duke of the liberal arts college world.

With regard to your two solutions: Huh? Is there a liberal arts college (or even a college within a larger university like Harvard or Yale) that does either? Not that I can think of.

Many, perhaps most, of the top liberal arts colleges strike an even balance and do not have their “odd quaders” feeling such a degree of estrangement and the constant diversity battles. I would point to Pomona as one of many examples.

One is to use admissions to eliminate the odd people from campus. Unfortunately that’s going to make the diversity numbers look bad (because they aren’t enough upper middle class black preppy jocks who aren’t going to HYPS).

You really think so? I wouldn’t have thought the Odd Quad had meaningfully different demographics from the rest of campus – obviously fewer athletes, but otherwise just as many white middle-class kids as the rest of campus. And I don’t know how you could screen out potential Out Quadders in the admissions process (maybe use certain activities as flags? but I don’t think that would work very well) even if you wanted to.

I also dispute that “odd” people at Williams are particularly disadvantaged under cluster housing. Sure, clusters broke up a historical residential center (just as happened to many other teams and groups), but all of the same institutions still exist – the elizabethans, deviants, contradances, etc. – and guess what, “odd” kids are perfectly capable of making friends and picking in with with people of similar interests, just as everyone else on campus does.

Perhaps 2000 is a very awkward number of students for a residential liberal arts college to have. It’s big enough that there’s not a homogeneous campus culture, but not so big that there is enough room for two campus cultures. Inevitably this means three quarters of the students are part of the majority culture and happy with their social life, and the other quarter which doesn’t fit in feels like they have been brought to the campus social scene to be gawked at like zoo animals.

This kind of us vs. them mentality is one of the things I never understood or liked about the Odd Quad, and I say this as someone who otherwise would have fit many of the characteristics of an odd quadder – non-athlete, musician, not a big drinker. It smacks of a persecution complex. The truth is that Williams has many, many more than two campus cultures; there’s more than one way to be a non-athlete and non-drinker at Williams (doing so does not make you “odd” unless you want it to) just as there’s more than one way to be an athlete (you really think the culture of the cross-country team is anything like the culture of the football team?). I think that one of the advantages of the breakup of the odd quad has been that people feel less of a need to “choose sides” and are more comfortable staking out their own particular corner of campus culture, whatever that may be.

’10:

Know what other groups become like fraternities? Sports teams, BSU, Vista, QSU, Record writers, JAs, WOOLF leaders, thesis and summer research students, and others.

In my experience, sports teams are the only group on that list who even approach being like fraternities (possibly also the racial minority groups, but there I will admit to not having firsthand knowledge). WOOLF leaders and thesis students often barely know each other, and outside of JA training I don’t think most JAs are particularly close with the other JAs in their class. People may find friends within those groups, but the groups themselves don’t have fraternity-like bonds.

Re: another ’10 ‘s post (which I won’t quote because it’s too much of a pain).

It is true that surface demographics don’t separate out odd students from everyone else very well. I don’t think it’s too hard in most cases to find the markers in the details of the applications though.

If admissions cuts down the odd population by half, then the college can implement what I’ll call the “Wabash solution” (because, as far as I can tell, that’s what Wabash College does). Basically, first years who don’t fit in are basically told that this is what the culture is like, and advised and helped to transfer elsewhere. (The one piece of solid evidence I do have is that they have a much higher transfer-out rate than most liberal arts colleges with students of their caliber.)

I dispute that odd kids are equally capable of making friends and picking in with people like them. Let’s face it – odd kids are more introverted than most kids. They are also probably less aware than most of how much having a supportive subculture actually helps them, partly because they have some identity from being a misfit. I won’t dispute there are some elements of a persecution complex, but it’s part of what makes the subculture work.